Best New Restaurants for Business 2017

Whether you considered 2016 a good or bad year overall, it at least was a year that saw plenty of good new restaurants. Crain's annual compilation of the best new spots for a business lunch sports eight places for a mannered midday meal and one with 15 ways for a quick bite. All the restaurants listed here (in no particular order) either opened or started serving lunch in 2016 and are located centrally downtown. (We've also included two farther afield.) Check out, too, the long shortlist of our favorite lunch dishes and craft cocktails from the year (it's right here). Crib from our lists, and let the good times roll in 2017.

The star of the Financial District

A comfortably posh, three-meals-a-day hotel restaurant, STEADFAST (120 W. Monroe St., 312-801-8899) works at least as well for the Loop's C-suite denizens as it does for the Kimpton Gray's guests. Agleam with marble, brass, leather and dark wood, this dining room, in what was once the New York Life Insurance Building, is an ideal backdrop for lunch meetings with important clients and customers. Executive chef Chris Davies' elegant dishes are as distinguished as the architecture, though far less traditional. House-cured charcuterie ($8) is a specialty, as are artisan breads with imaginative accoutrements ($7)—a puffy, lavender-inflected pretzel, perhaps, with crunchy hibiscus cucumber pickles. Main events might be anything from wood-roasted suckling pig with salsa verde ($14) to red snapper with dilled compressed apples ($26). And a decadent morsel of foie gras covered with dark chocolate ($4), listed as a snack, makes a memorable finish. Smooth service keeps meals on track. — J.T.

At OCEAN CUT (20 W. Kinzie St., 312-280-8882), chefs come and go like so many slippery fish. Last month, Dirk Flanigan, the restaurant's third chef since April 2015, announced his departure, and Jason Paskewitz (the Blanchard) was named as his replacement. Changes at the helm notwithstanding, we've experienced nothing but smooth sailing on lunchtime visits to this beautiful dining room. The place is that increasingly rare thing—a grown-up, polished setting for a classic business lunch, with sophisticated food and old-school service. Shellfish towers and the day's catches of whole fish, grilled or salt-crusted, make for a splendid midday meal, but there are options for all appetites. Keep an eye out for starters of tuna tartare with charred melon ($14) and crisp pork belly with flash-fried snails ($14), and for entrees involving not only Lake Superior whitefish or smoked sable but also steaks from sibling Chicago Cut's justly famous repertoire. — J.T.

Ocean Cut features a grown-up, polished setting for a business lunch.

And, yes, you can get a steak.

Casually chic seafood in the West Loop

Adjacent to dinner-only sibling Swift & Sons, COLD STORAGE (1000 W. Fulton Market, 312-638-6268) is one part folksy clam shack, one part fancy-pants seafood bar. You can sit on a backless stool and tuck into a simple bowl of chowder with crackers or a half-dozen oysters and a beer, but you can also go for the seafood towers ($20 to $75 per person), the priciest of which involves lobster on top of everything else. (Given the restaurant's location in Google's Midwest headquarters, you might actually see people eating this.) Everything we tried from the high-low menu was fresh and delicious, from raw-bar delicacies and translucent gravlax with soda crackers ($12) to well-made sandwiches like shrimp banh mi ($12). This being Chicago, you can also get a bacon double cheeseburger. Top it off with dessert by James Beard Award-nominated pastry chef Meg Galus, who also handles sweet stuff for Swift & Sons. — J.T.

Chef Jesus Delgado really has got it going on at TANTA (118 W. Grand Ave., 312-222-9700), a hip Peruvian spot that opened in 2013 but just added lunch last year. Eating his imaginative offerings on the rooftop terrace in warm weather transports you from River North to South America in the blink of an eye. Servers help with unfamiliar menu terms, but the food itself is highly accessible. Subtle layers of flavor and texture enliven seafood, meat and vegetarian dishes; quinoa, potatoes, chili peppers and choclo (Peruvian corn) show up frequently. Start with one of four cebiches or with wonderful causita limena ($10)—purple potatoes whipped with aji peppers and topped with roasted chicken salad and a quail egg. Pan con chicharron ($14), a sandwich of crisp-fried pork belly with sweet potato and mint criolla, is another winner. "Power lunch" choices ($17 and $20) let you try dishes from three menu categories, a good option for newbies. — J.T.

Tanta's pan con chicharron (crisp-fried pork belly).

Gentle surprises

Every drop of ink spilled about this South-facing gastro-castle tethers it to its parent hospitality company, Alinea Group. Unlike its special-occasion, dollar-sign-maximizing sisters, however, ROISTER (951 W. Fulton Market, no phone) welcomes walk-ins, hands out a la carte menus and lets customers escape with two-digit tabs. With the exception of the $49 wagyu steak and egg, nothing on the lunch menu tops $21. And unlike the eyebrow-raising, surprise-filled food at Alinea, most everything at Roister showcases chef Andrew Brochu's creativity in an unthreatening way. Cauliflower sprinkles into the aged cheddar rillettes ($11). The shrimp and grits ($21) packs crab curry and Thai basil. The fried chicken, Roister's signature dinner dish, shows up in a sandwich ($13) with chamomile mayonnaise. Only occasionally do shades of Alinea chef Grant Achatz sneak in, like with smoldering applewood chips under the smoked oysters ($18) and a sweet-savory foie gras candy bar ($10) for dessert. It's casual, easy, any-weekday lunch. Forget that anyone said anything about Alinea. — G.M.

Roister offers an Alinea experience without the high price tag. | PHOTO BY MATTHEW GILSON

Veggie love

As if there weren't enough worthy places to eat near Randolph and Halsted streets, BAD HUNTER (802 W. Randolph St., 312-265-1745) took its opening bow at harvest time last year, in time for its vegetable-sprouted focus to blossom. Creative and marvelous meatless dishes meet diners, such as butter dumplings ($18) with charred cabbage, shiitake mushrooms, Asian pears and kimchi, or squash tartine ($15) with soft sheep's-milk cheese, maitake mushrooms and tomato conserva. On days the hunter's aim was true, carnivorous dishes such as the braised lamb grilled cheese ($16) hit the bull's-eye. Desserts, sometimes strikingly savory, even sweet-shunning in the case of a red curry squash tart ($10), signal a kitchen with ambitions in the most rarefied of fine-dining strata. The extraordinary food compensates for the unpleasant loudness of the room, and one of the bar's excellent cocktails can take some of the teeth out of that beef. May the hunter never improve. — G.M.

The Loop contains the greatest number of offices in the city. The greatest number of good lunch restaurants, however, reside in the neighborhoods a river-jump away. Whatever demographic Murphy's Law caused this inconvenience, the Lawless sisters, from the family that owns the Gage, Acanto and the Dawson, break it at THE DEARBORN (145 N. Dearborn St., 312-384-1242). Not everything on chef Aaron Cuschieri's menu flies high and sticks the landing, but enough of the offbeat choices warrant repeating, such as onion panino ($14), burrata with shiso ($16), marrow bones ($16) and aged duck breast ($26, plus $4 for uni butter). Pastry chef Courtney Joseph, whose resume lists impressive former co-workers such as Takashi Yagihashi, Mindy Segal and Meg Galus, deserves leaving room for dessert. The several dining spaces in the Dearborn's labyrinthine layout leave latitude for more- or less-private seating as the occasion demands. The Dearborn isn't ideal, but by Loop standards it's a dear. — G.M.

PHOTO BY GILBANE BUILDING CO.

The Dearborn's Chicago Dog . . .

. . . and Chicago burger. | PHOTOS BY KAILLEY LINDMAN

Stellar grab-and-go for foodies

REVIVAL FOOD HALL (125 S. Clark St., 773-999-9411) delivers everything the sticky summer extravaganza Taste of Chicago implies with its name but fails to execute. Localism looks and tastes terrific here, on the ground floor of a spiffily restored 1907 building designed by Daniel Burnham. Most menus of the 15 vendors—many of them offshoots of popular spots in Chicago neighborhoods—are brief and highly focused. Cumulatively they cover everything from Nashville hot fried chicken ($9-$10 sandwich) at the Budlong and brisket ($8.95 sandwich) at Smoque BBQ to mind-expanding bowls of ramen ($7.95-$12.95) at Furious Spoon and adobo-rubbed pork carnitas ($9 for two tacos) at Antique Taco Chiquito. The sparkling, sprawling place drew crowds immediately upon opening in August and has bustled ever since. You won't want to attempt super-serious work talk in the hall, where most seating is communal. But it's perfect for takeout or on-site picnicking with colleagues who care about food. — J.T.

J.T. Revival features offshoots of some of Chicago's most popular restaurants.

PHOTOS BY JENNIFER CATHERINE PHOTOGRAPHY

Celebrating the seasons

Farm-to-table food means evanescence on the menu. Some of the delectations at Art Smith's BLUE DOOR KITCHEN (52 W. Elm St., 312-573-4000) when we visited in September won't reappear until next summer, such as the magic worked with peaches or melon. Fortunately, fried chicken is always in season (and in style, these days), meaning Smith's delightful, sloppy mess of a sandwich ($15) isn't going anywhere, except hopefully your stomach. Nor is the diner-style two-patty burger ($16, or $17 with an egg). The handsome, tidily rustic indoor space welcomes a business lunch, and the idyllic outdoor patio—another seasonal aspect peaking in summer—invites a late lunch interview that stretches into an early happy hour. Though prices have increased since our visits, Blue Door remains an excellent value for its quality, location and consistency. Not to mention its variety, the flip side of farm-to-table seasonality. Maybe your favorite dish has left the menu, but when one window closes, a blue door opens. — G.M.

PHOTO BY ANTHONY TAHLIER

Away from downtown

We have a soft spot for French restaurants that execute classic bistro cuisine with conviction and style rather than going all blurry with global this and Mediterranean that. With its sunny, white-tableclothed dining room and ratatouille, steak frites, and savory and sweet crepes on the menu, EPICURE BISTRO (718 W. Northwest Highway, Barrington, 847-382-1677) is a charmer. Owner Katherine Cappas knows the territory, having run a popular creperie in Woodstock before coming to Barrington in 2015. Area businesspeople seek out Epicure for lunches where conversation matters, but the food matters, too. We loved chef Pedro Ballesteros' escargots in garlic butter ($9), country pate with cornichons ($12), beautiful salads and a special entree of pan-seared cobia, a firm-textured fish, with currant cassis sauce, risotto and roasted vegetables ($28.50). Service is efficient enough for those in a hurry, relaxed enough for anyone who's not. — J.T.

Not a lot of nine-to-fivers work within easy travel distance of ARBOR (2545 W. Diversey Ave., 312-866-0795) except for the lucky denizens of the Green Exchange, an environmentally conscious repurposed lamp factory on Diversey Avenue near the Kennedy Expressway. But it's worth going out of your way for. Tucked away off-street on the second floor, Arbor serves breakfast and lunch via counter service, and three days a week, reservations-only tasting-menu dinners, all sourced with produce from a green roof and garden plots butting up against the Metra tracks, and honey from a rooftop apiary. The food that chef-owners Chad Little and Leonard Hollander alchemize from these ingredients delivers stupefyingly delicious flavors in modest packages, such as sandwiches of espresso-cured roast beef, grilled giardiniera and cheese curds ($10) or grilled cauliflower, cranberry mostarda and MontAmore cheese ($8). Though it opened in 2015, the low visibility and humble lack of hyping meant the food world didn't discover it until around New Year's 2016. No more excuses, now that it's 2017. — G.M.